Some bureaucrat in D.C. uses the word "niggardly," and he resigns. Golfer
Fuzzy Zoeller makes a crack about blacks and fried chicken, he loses $2
million in endorsements. But President Clinton disses old people, and
nothing. Nothing! Where's the American Association of Retired Persons? Where
are the Gray Panthers? And Sen. Strom Thurmond, who weighs in at nearly 100
years old, hasn't uttered a peep.

It's one thing for Juanita Broaddrick to allege that the president, when
attorney general of Arkansas, raped her. I can understand our collective
yawn over that one.

And, sure, we all experienced discomfort during the Monica Lewinsky/Barbara
Walters interview, where we learn that Monica rates the president a "good
kisser." And where we also learn that the president, when he removed his
shirt, sucked in his stomach. And that she desperately wanted intercourse,
but he resisted. That Monica told the cigar story to 10 of her friends. And
that, according to Monica Lewinsky, the president, a lonely man with a tough
job, needed some, you know, "peace of mind."

Just two gals talkin’

Few of us are getting exercised about Lewinsky's new book, "Monica's
Story," where we read about her disgust toward independent counsel Ken Starr
because of the level of "detail" he sought, a specificity that "sickened"
poor Monica.

(Of course, it's different merely telling 75 million Americans
about cigars, the president's stomach, his ability to kiss, his loneliness
and her thong-bikini gambit -- a k a a "small, subtle flirtation." This
stuff made the Starr report read like the 23rd Psalm.)

No, I speak of the lack of outrage, anger and indignation over the
president's remarks about ... old people! Our senior citizens, who survived
the Depression, fought World War I, World War II and the Cold War. They're
the very people for whom we're saving Medicare and Social Security.

What am I talking about? See, according to Monica, the president dismissed
the possibility that he and she might have a future together. Not because
Clinton is already married or because he didn't have true feelings for her.
Nor because the prez wanted to spare Chelsea and Hillary the indignity of
watching him take up with an intern his daughter's age.

Clinton's reason for shooting down the warm image of the ex-commander in
chief and Monica riding off into the sunset? The president said, "What are
we gonna do when I'm 75 and have to pee 25 times a day?" Peeing 25 times a
day? What a stereotype. Can you say ageism?

Listen up, AARP. Somebody please fax the Gray Panthers. Senior citizens of
America, unite! The president just said you 75-year-olds "pee 25 times a
day"!!

I needed an expert. My dad turns 84 in May. So I called him.

"Dad, this is a little, uh, delicate, but how many times per day do you,
uh, go No. 1?"

"Gee, I don't know, never counted."

"I know, Dad, but humor me."

"Let's see," he said, "I probably go about once every three hours."

"So, assume you stay up 16 hours, we're talkin' maybe five times or so."

"Yeah, I think that's about right."

So now, I pounced. I told my dad what the president said. For a man, I
said, who "feels our pain," who defends the poor, the sick, the aged, the
infirm, the minorities, the women, the blind, the deaf, how could Clinton
diss you this way?

To this, my dad said, "Doesn't matter to me what he thinks."

Oh, sure, cover up for him. Never thought I'd see the day. My dad, part of
the vast left-wing cabal, blindly defending the president. Imagine having a
James Carville or a Lanny Davis -- in my own family!

I tried another angle.

"Dad," I said to my lifelong Republican father, "suppose Nixon or Bush or
Reagan had said, 'Hey, I don't want to be gumming down my oatmeal and
dribbling on my walker as I attempt to get out of my handicapped-parked car.

That's why I can't take up with you.' What then?! If a Republican president
had said this, Dad, they'd be calling it 'Seniorgate.' Wake up, Father.
Smell the prunes!

"If Hillary has to apologize to women for her 'bake cookies' remark. If
Jesse 'The Body' Ventura goes on Letterman and then apologizes for making a
joke about drunken Irishmen designing the city of St. Paul. If Jimmy 'The
Greek' Snyder loses his gig because of his drunken theory on the superiority
of the black athlete, why then, Dad, should the president escape the wrath
of our offended geezers, er, seniors?"

"Larry," my dad said, "sounds like you have way too much time on your
hands."